Obama Should Start Treating Boehner The Way He Once Treated Hillary

President Obama will unveil a new jobs program next week. I must admit I’m not very optimistic. Here’s what he wrote in a letter to Congressional leaders today:

As I have traveled across our country this summer and spoken with our fellow Americans, I have heard a consistent message: Washington needs to put aside politics and start making decisions based on what is best for our country and not what is best for each of our parties in order to grow the economy and create jobs. We must answer this call.

Are you still awake? While this isn’t exactly the kind of sloppy wet kiss to Republicans I’ve come to expect from this president, neither is it the bold declaration of Democratic principles and programs he needs to deliver now. Obama appears to be preparing to saddle up his post-partisan happy horse for one more rodeo.

As it happens, dear readers, I’ve obtained a recent photograph of that horse:

Stone Dead For Sure

Some people say Barack Obama is uncomfortable playing hardball. I don’t believe that for a second. He and his team were utterly ruthless in their campaign against Hillary Clinton in 2008. (See my first blog for the gory details.) Now that his bipartisanship-at-all-costs governing strategy is finished, Obama needs to get back into his old mindset:

Republicans don’t want to pass anything anyway. Obama has to make it as painful as possible for them to say “no”.